Friday, November 12

I recently returned from a very rewarding visit with family and friends in New Jersey, the first time in three years that I have been back home (yes the term still applies, more than 25 years after leaving for Spain). One of the highlights was a trip with my mother to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a first for me. My great pleasure in strolling through the magnificent "European Art 1850-1900" section of their permanent collection was very much enhanced by being able to take photographs there. You see, in Spain, and in most of Europe as far as I have been able to find, taking photos inside museums is strictly prohibido. While I agree that flash photography of works of art should be prohibited, the only reason I can see for not allowing non-flash non-professional photographs of anything, even the text signs that accompany and describe paintings and exhibits, is commercial, namely, to boost the museum's sales of catalogues and reproductions of the art works.

So on this visit to the museum, my usual slow dawdling amble through the galleries and rooms was reduced to a snail-paced crawl with camera in hand. But I was one happy snail. More than head-on individual photos of the paintings, what particularly captured my optic fancy was being able to snap the paintings and sculptures in context, from different angles to frame them in the company of their illustrious art siblings and neighbours.

Despite her fame for fearlessness, Marcello's bronze Pythian Sibyl seems frightened of the larkspurs in Henri Fantin-Latour's 1891 oil panting. Here's a question for you: what might dolphins have to do with both of these works of art? For a fascinating essay on this work and the sculptress who produced it, Marcello (Duchesse de Castiglione-Colonna, born Adele d'Affry), see this article in the journal Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide.

This room featured a curious triptych composed of Adriano Cecioni's 1868 bronze Boy With a Rooster and Auguste Rodin's The Thinker framing Thomas Eakins' Crucifixion ...

Startled and afraid, the crying child closes his eyes and holds on for dear life to his crowing dawns. No one had yet told him that paradise had been lost, that the true paradises are the paradises we have lost (Proust).

Meanwhile, naked with his thoughts, the thinker is pondering what the difference might be, if any, between Christ dying on the cross to save humanity and humanity crucifying Christ to save itself (in the words of Antonio Machado).

Rodin, Renoir, mom.

I love this photograph, although I may be opening myself to the critique that I have harnessed here the classic female triumvirate of the male imagination: voluptuous nude, washerwoman, mother. Oh well, so be it...

35 comments:

Nicely done, loved the photo's and the captures underneath each one, and love the last one with your mother...an interesting capture and very tender. It is interesting about the photo taking - my favorite museum the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I spent so much time there I would have loved if they rented me a room even if it were a closet, I have some wonderful photo's and never though much about it till I moved here to the Pacific North West, where it was not allowed. The guard who was kind really followed me around a while and chatted with me in the Tacoma Glass Museum -- more so that I would not take anymore photo's..lovely post,joanny

It’s such a “Lorenzo” thing you do, to find something extraordinary in art, connect with it through your beautiful heart-mind, while visiting your parents, and then share it with us. Such a short little post, with arrows in many directions I want to follow and digest.

I have not step foot in the Opera or the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so I haven’t had the chance to witness a cast of the Pythia. The Sibyl bronze is so striking there in that gallery, her hand held up before the larkspurs as if to a fire. I read the linked Pierre article with fascination. Her body and position are so bold and intense, which is borne out in the story of this sculptress Marcello. While her work was not rewarded by the Salon as it should have been, at least a few male critics praised her work to the skies. I find it appropriate that her masterpiece was of this mythological character who had power, sight, and yet was susceptible to the domination of Apollo. I love that the main cast is in the Opera, which bears out the connection between music and the fierce and sometimes frenzied ecstasy of this oracle woman.

Then there is the thinker grouping, and the Rodin, Renoir, Mother trio, both incredibly evocative. I could write as much again about each, but I’ll refrain. ☺

This trio of juxtapositions is inspiring, beautiful and as always, Lorenzo, thoughtfully and deliciously rendered through your artistic sensibilities, unique and breathtaking.

Wow, Ruth, thanks so much. I really think it is time we finally get together and I invite you to a coffee ;). I am glad my musings and meshings here have touched a chord in you. That's really what this blog is all about.

Oh-oh-oh. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of my very favorite spots. My daughter lived in Philly for four years, while attending AVA and we made it a point to visit every time we were in town. On our last trip, we were fortunate enough to see the Kahlo exhibit. It was packed, ear to nostril, but you could hear a pin drop. The energy was electric. It was an experience I will never forget.

I particularly like the magnificent Winged Victory on the staircase, and Chagall's "The Poet" and "The Crucifiction", to name just a few that come to mind.

Lorenzo - what a lovely lesson in playing with position and perspective. Each adjustment, every move creates a whole new scene that offers its own meaning and proposes new questions. The placement of each of the pieces sheds fresh light on the other piece in the scene - and each informs the other.

We should all take your lesson and apply it to life. A new thought, a shift in a relationship, a bit of distance can add so much to our understanding of our current situation. Such juxtapositions truly illuminate things we might otherwise be blind to.

This is a great and interesting post, Lorenzo. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of my favorites.

Your photographic compositions are wonderful and thought-provoking. My favorite is the one of Rodin's Thinker and the crucified Christ, all of which is enhanced by the question raised by Machado (which, incidentally, is now the surname through marriage of my daughter).

I love your photos, Lorenzo!! They are little works of art themselves. Interesting what you say about not being able to take photos in Europe - I've had the opposite experience! Museums in Canada strictly prohibit photography, whereas while I was in France, it seemed there wasn't a single place where you couldn't take (non-flash) photographs.

I have never visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art--or the Opera in Paris. Two misses of Marcello's fabulous bronze. Is the sybil reaching for the flowers, or pushing them away? And what is Fantin-Latour's connection with dolphins?Love your other juxtapositions. You're right, however, the last one is dangerous ;)

lorenzo - i love to try and get inside the head of the artist but now i'm drawn to get inside the head of the curator also!! these are fascinating images lorenzo because they suggest some thoughtfulness went into the placement of the pieces. thought of the kind that asks the viewer to unpack the allegory, the symbolism of the juxtaposition and to move beyond the simpler call-response relationship we have with the single object. thanks for this. steven

Hi there!Coming by the hand of Ruth, who introduced my self to youIt seems you have such an interesting blog, with lot of thoughts exposed. This last post I've found it really interesting, I've never been in USA and so in no museum there and I've loved watching it in your images, mixing paintings with sculptures in that particular way. Maybe you're right about the prohibiting thing in spanish museums, but that's sad not being able to create photo-art (without flash) as you did just because of a commercial aim.Great post, hope you had a wonderful time visiting home. See you soon :)

Hello, Bonnie. Thanks for the kind comment. I especially like the insightful parallel you draw with the need for being able to shift perspective in many situations in our life. Sometimes a subtle change of viewpoint, distance and angle can do so much to advance our understanding.

George. With some luck we can meet up some day to visit the museum together. I definitely plan on getting back there next time I am back in the US. I saw just a small part of their wonderful collection and didn’t even make it to the Rodin garden. You could show me your favorite works in the museum. So you have a Machado in the family now, do you? After my current series on Miguel Hernández I want to do some pieces on Lorca and Antonio Machado, three of the greatest Spanish poets of the 20th century and all three, tragically, done in by the Spanish civil war.

Hi, Margaret. Hopefully, the trend will be toward allowing a reasonable amount of photography in these fine museums. I am so tempted some times to ‘break the rules’, but do hold these temples of art in such high almost reverential esteem that it would go against the grain to do so. I have an art trip back to Paris (and Giverny) planned for the not too distant future, so I hope the policy you recall still applies at the museums there.

Hello, ds. The connection with dolphins is a bit oblique, I admit. Basically, the name of the painting is ‘Still Life with Imperial Delphiniums’, which is another term for larkspur. Apparently, the term comes from the Latin for dolphin, because the flower was thought to look like a dolphin when opening. As for the connection to the Pythian Sibyl, the sibyls were the oracles at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, which takes its name from the belief that Apollo took the form of a dolphin when founding the temple.

Hey, Steven. I agree completely that it is nice to think of what the curator is doing. Most everything is carefully thought out, the selection, placement, lighting … Their work is probably the most effective, however, when we least notice what they have done, so their efforts go largely unheralded. Over the years, taking in the feeling of a room as a whole, not just the individual paintings, has become important to me. Sometimes, here in Spain, stories have come to me on seeing a certain sculpture with a given painting in the background, viewed at just the right angle. The temptation to click away was strong … so when I found I could do this freely at this museum I was really delighted.

Welcome to the blog, Dsole. It is a pleasure to see you here and, of course, Ruth is the best possible ‘reference’. I have visited and enjoyed your inviting blog Momentos and look forward to seeing more of you there and here.

Beautiful, Lorenzo! The pictures are wonderful! Yes, I smiled over the last photo, too. I'm glad you had a chance to go home and also to visit this amazing place. Thank you for sharing it with us here.

Argh... the image of The Thinker reminds me that I missed a Rodin exhibit in North Carolina (they somehow acquired damn near his entire collection). Alas, I was in the process of returning to the West Coast, so I missed it.

HI Fernando, I didn't know you'd been to New Jersey, hope you had good weather and enjoyed your visit. Was wondering if you had a chance to get to the Rodin museum, it's absolutely my favorite place in Philly, such gorgeous and stependous work. Hope you're enjoying the holiday. Claudia (Sue's sister)

You are a clever one to make the delphinium connection of the first pairing :) Thank you for including the article in the art journal. The Regnault painting is strangely reminiscent of the Sunmaid Raisin logo: http://www.citizenofthemonth.com/2006/04/03/i-love-you-sun-maid-raisin-girl/

Like you, I enjoy seeing how the artwork occupies the exhibit space. I worked at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology when I was in college and I had a front row seat to many a heated debate amongst the curators. I can only imagine the discussion when it was finally decided that the Boy with a Rooster was going to frame Crucifixion with Rodin's Thinker. One can at least say that the bronze colors match the frame of Eakins' painting. At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, I find your photo of the rooster with the crucifix downright comical. I'm sure there are some curators who would crow (if you'll excuse the expression) "I told you so" if they see this post.

As for your final paragraph, I admire your brutal honesty, but I'm guessing you are fortunate that you are not within striking distance of most of your readers :)

Love Rodin's art, and not because he's male (just teasing, referring to you last comment!). I'm one that laments the fact that pics are prohibited in the European museums (maybe you remember I'm Dutch). Personally I liked to have lived in the time when prints of paintings were not available:)